i'm gonna carry this
by Self-Inflicted Insanity
Summary: Kaneki just might be insane. But he just might be okay with that. (Or maybe he's just too far gone to wish for anything different.)
1. i'm gonna carry this

**AN:** I just discovered _Tokyo Ghoul_ last week. I binge-watched the anime, and then I binge-read the manga, and my insides are all shredded. Oh gawd, I love _Tokyo Ghoul_ so much, but it hurts like hell and it's so. Fucked. Up. And I sped through it, so I really don't understand half of what's going on. I need to go through slower, read some analyses, actually think about stuff.

But for now, I just needed to get some turmoiled emotion stuff out so I can actually focus on other stuff. I really want to write fanfic for this series, but it's one that's really hard to write for. I don't know if I can. So much is going on (so much that I don't understand), and it's so dark and heavy (I'm scared to even broach some of the material). But I had to write _something._ So here's some Insane!Kaneki! Written at like 4am when I couldn't sleep because _damn this series._ (And does anybody know what the hell is going on with Hide? Something is going on with Hide.)

Anyways. Don't think of this as me trying to accurately capture his psyche or anything. I don't think it could even be quite characterized as a character study. It's just an interpretive piece of art. I'm really just trying to get emotions out, here. (As great as emotions are [gawd they really suck (sometimes [a lot of the time])], this series really deserves to deeply thought about. Which I'll do later, when my emotions aren't in so much turmoil... haha I feel kinda wrecked and vaguely sick.)

This is Kaneki's POV, second-person. The 'when' is ambiguous.

Title is from the song "Hungry" by Rob Bailey and The Hustle Standard.

* * *

 **i'm gonna carry this shit on my fucking back.  
**

* * *

Hunger is a blackhole in your stomach.

But no, that's wrong, because if that were the case then you'd be sucked inside yourself, and that's not what's happening.

No, hunger isn't a blackhole in your stomach. Hunger has turned you into a blackhole.

You are a blackhole, and your prey is moving at the speed of light, but that's not fast enough. Blackholes are so powerful-ravenous that not even light can get away.

You are so hungry. It's consuming you.

 _Eat_ , says her voice. Her voice in your head. _Eat them all up._

No, hunger isn't consuming you. You are the one doing the consuming.

You are the one.

You are.

(Were.)

 _Are._

You are.

Who are you?

 _What's one-thousand minus seven?_ whispers his voice.

His voice.

Not his.

His voice.

His.

Yours.

Your voice.

 _What's one-thousand minus seven?_

Nine-hundred-ninety-three.

 _Who are you?_

Nine-hundred-eighty-six.

(You welcome it.)

 _Who are you?_

Nine-hundred-seventy-nine.

(You accept it.)

 _Who are you?_

Nine-hundred-seventy-two.

(You become it.)

 _What are you?_

You are a monster.

 _What are you?_

Monster. You don't care.

 _What are you?_

A monster. It doesn't matter. It's what you have to be. You have to. To protect them.

You will protect them.

You will.

You.

Limping birds and lonely rabbits, made entirely out of light, so light light liGhT thEir sMiLES thEy dIM tHeY dIE bEcAUsE oF YoU beCAuSE.

You are a blackhole. You have to stay away from them.

You have to.

Nine-hundred-sixty-five.

 _I know you are, but what am I?_

You are a blackhole.

You are hungry. You are in darkness. You are in pain.

No.

 _You are hunger. You are darkness._

 _You are pain._

yOU aRe PAiN.

EVeRYTHiNg YoU ArE iS PAiN. Pain is not your weakness but your strength. Pain is your armor, your sword, your shield. Pain is your love. Pain is your hunger. Pain is your god. Pain is yourself.

You are in pain.

And it hurts and it hurts and it h _urts and it hurts anD iT HuRTS It hURts IT HurTS oH pLEaSE mOMmY mAKe iT StOP i'M sOrRY i'm SOrRy dOn'T hURt mE sTOP i'M sORrY i LoVE yoU StOp plEaSE iT hUrTs._

A hole is ripped through your abdomen and you laugh, you laugh because iT hURtS and you know that yOu aRE lOvED.

 _(ThIs wOrlD iS WRoNG.)_

In their whispers, they tell you that you are loved. They tell you _Eat them_ and they tell you _The strong devour the weak_ and they tell you _All losses in this world are due to lack of ability_ and they tell you that _It's better to hurt than to hurt others_ and they tell you _It's better to devour than to be devoured_ and they tell you _What doesn't kill you makes you stronger_ and they tell you _Pain will make you stronger._

You are in pain. Pain is your strength. The more you hurt—the more you eat—the stronger you grow.

You need to grow stronger.

You need to.

 _Nine-hundred-fifty-eight._

Who are you?

 _Nine-hundred-fifty-one._

You are pain.

 _Nine-hundred-forty-six._

They think they know pain? You will _show them_ pain.

You will show them.

You.

 _What's one-thousand minus seven?_

 _Count aloud. I want to hear you count._

Pain is your nervous system. It powers you. Gasoline. Pain is gasoline _(you broken machine)_. Gasoline is power. Power is.

Power is pain.

 _(The machine keeps kick-kick-kicking. Click-click-click. You can't hear the gears turning.)_

 _(There's a centipede in your ear.)_

 _(You can feel it writhing. Feel it munching. You can feel it. The centipede in your ear.)_

 _(You can't hear your screaming.)_

Nine-hundred-ninety-three.

 _(You can't hear yourself counting.)_

 _What's one-thousand minus seven?_

Nine-hundred-ninety-three.

What's one-thousand minus seven?

 _You will devour me._

 _You will._

 _Devour._

 _You._

You are a blackhole. To devour is your nature. To devour and to grow stronger. With each bite you take, you can hear the voices.

 _Is that what you wanted? Is it?_

You wanted the pain. You chose it. You wanted it.

You wanted the pain.

 _(But I never wanted you._ )

( _I never asked for you.)_

 _I'll never ask for anything ever again._

 _(I never asked for you.)_

You wanted the pain. It makes you writhe and scream in pleasure. The pain. It brings tears to your eyes. A grin to your face.

(Your mouth tastes foul.)

(You like it.)

 _You think you are a monster. You don't know anything._

 _I will show you what it means to be a monster._

 _You think you're a monster?_

 _I_ _am a monster._

 _I am—_

You aRe

— _a_ _ghoul._

A gHoUL.

.

.

.

 _(Hehe, Mommy, i'm sO FUcKeD uP.)_

 _(i LiKe iT.)_

 _(mOmMY, i LiKE iT.)_


	2. eat me up completely

**AN:** I will eventually reexamine _Tokyo Ghoul_ and try to actually figure things out and maybe write a semi-coherent piece with some kind of plot or point to it that I might at least be moderately proud of, but today is not that day. Today I'm just trying to capture an impression of insanity.

Trying a different writing style, this time. I might try a few more, see what seems to work best. It's times like this when I wish I could do art, lol. But all I can do is write…

I feel like I need to do research, though I'm not quite sure what about... just that I need to do more of _something_ , because I don't currently know what I'm doing.

Title of this chapter from the English translation of the song "Eifersucht" by Rammstein.

* * *

 **kill me and eat me up completely**

* * *

They're devouring you, again and again they're devouring you, they're inside you, devouring you from the inside and you don't know who you are anymore, but there's blood in your teeth and it's sickly sweet on your tongue, like the candy you used to eat but you've forgotten, and it's salty.

You lick your lips and your vision is blurry flashes of screen like a movie action scene, the after-images bleeding in your eyes left behind by strikes of lightning cracking inside your skull.

And you _laugh_ because the pain tickles, it _tickles_ , and you're vision is flashing with the white of pain and it's so _pretty_ and _clean_ and _pure,_ and the blood you know is splattered on your face just as delightfully _dark_ and _grimy_ and you feel like a juxtaposition.

A juxtaposition, diamond alertness and hazy darkness, on the verge of passing out but the most alive you've ever felt.

You're a living cruel parody of an impressionist painting, dark and twisted, everything in brief images and flashes that don't quite align at the edges.

You're eating, and you're being eaten, and the moon is cutting into your skin even though you're drowning in darkness. and there's a roof over your head and walls on all sides and you're trapped, but your kagune is out, all the way out, all of it, and you feel free and like maybe you're heading towards where you're supposed to be.

And there's pain, pain, _pain_ _(nine-hundred-ninety-three)_ and you think a part of you is missing, but you don't miss it.

There's the nagging feeling of something forgotten, something you were doing, trying to do, but there's blood in your mouth that tastes foul like kerosene and you think it might be yours, but you're not sure, and you lick it from your lips, lick the plate clean.

They're eating you up completely, and you _laugh_ because what do they think they can do to you? What do they think they can do to you that you won't survive, that you cannot endure, that you won't own and turn against them? What do they think they are that you cannot become, ten times worse than they ever were?

Your kagune are your limbs, your extensions of yourself, your nightmares brought to life from your skin and writhing in reality.

You're in pain, tearing to pieces, but you're not scared; there's nothing to be scared of when you are the embodiment of horror, when you are the creature that makes monsters scream. They are so, so afraid of you, and because of it they hate you (but what they should be of you is _jealous_ ).

Eye-Patch. Centipede. Benign names for malevolent terrors, broken creatures, a hunger that will never be satisfied and a pain that will never fade.

They're coming, they're coming, _they're coming,_ they're already inside your head, crawling in your ear, _it's in your ear, in your brain_ , and you're pretty sure that the screaming isn't coming from you because it's so beautiful and you don't want the sound to stop.

But if must be yours because you're alone ( _they all left you alone_ _)_ _,_ yourself in an empty room, empty building, empty world. But you're not lonely; you will never be lonely again, because _they_ are inside your head, keeping you company, or maybe it's you in _their_ head keeping them company, you can't be sure any more. You can't be sure of anything.

 _(You're being eaten, eaten up completely._ )

They already took your innocence, the light from your eyes. They stripped off your skin in pieces, tore into the flesh, the muscles, and now you're walking bones, and your soul is on fire, turning to ash, and your tongue is in your mouth but it's disconnected from your throat and you're choking on blood.

You're choking on blood (it's not yours, you don't think), foul and disgusting and you think that it tastes just like chocolate cake.

You knew you wouldn't survive like this unless you _did something,_ stopped cowering in the darkness, and you needed to become stronger.

You need to become the strongest, the most powerful, in order to protect what matters to you _(something still matters to you)_ , and you will pay any price— _any—_ to make sure that you are the most monstrous thing out there.

You're tired of being haunted, of being eaten. If there's haunting and eating to be done, you want to be the one doing it. You will be the one doing it.

If there's pain to be dealt out you want in on both sides, because you're selfish, you're so, so selfish, and you'll take anything and give everything just to make sure you lose nothing.

There are red flower petals everywhere; you trail them from your shoes, your broken feet. They rain from your kagune. Red blossoms in white hair.

You're not quite sure you're alive—surely this world is too pretty for the likes of you—but you can feel your heart beating, a steady rhythm in your chest, and their voices tell you how _delicious_ it sounds, that heartbeat.

A voice tells you that you're insane, but the other voices devour it, and you think that sanity's overrated, anyway. Sanity will not let you save them.

Someone would have to be insane to try to change the world.

So if insanity will make you stronger, you will gladly, happily submit to it, sacrificing all that's left of who you were to become something powerful and even more broken, because the glass bottle hurts but the shattered glass shards hurt more.

And you've learned so very much about pain. It would only be fair for you to share that knowledge, wouldn't it?


End file.
